An Ice Cold Heart
by Alaburn
Summary: A short series about Eska. This is really just the result of an attempted analysis of her character and trying to get at the root of her psychological development. Lots of description and inner monologue. A few references to Boleska, but mostly focusing on her relationship with Desna. Lots of angst. *Post Season 2 Finale EDIT - Now officially AU*
1. Chapter 1

**An Ice Cold Heart**

**Part I**

* * *

Eska had always known that she was born set apart from other girls her age, but whether that was good or bad remained a mystery while she grew up as Princess of the Northern Water Tribe. The day she first struggled with this dilemma was when she was still a small child and she and Desna were accompanying their father on a walk through the royal city one afternoon. As Unalaq stopped to speak with a city guard, his children halted as well and waited obediently side by side, and it was then that little Eska noticed a group of girls about her age giggling and chattering to each other as they all entered a large igloo, herded closely by an old woman who smiled fondly down at them.

"What do you think they're doing?" Eska whispered quietly to her brother.

"Who cares?" He replied, not the least bit concerned about a bunch of stupid girls. "That old lady is the healer woman who comes to the palace sometimes. She must not be very good because Father doesn't like her."

"You are correct, Desna," Unalaq spoke down to his children after sending the guardsman away. "Healing is a branch of waterbending for the weak. However, it is traditionally taught to female waterbenders, and Nakoma is supposedly the best in the North," he said with a rigid scowl on his face as he nodded to the building where the elderly woman had taken her students. "Have no fear, Eska, I will teach you all that is necessary for you to know. Now let's return home. It's time for your evening meditation."

Eska complied silently as she and her brother matched each other step for step and followed their father back to the palace, but her young mind was anything but quiet. Why would she need to fear learning from such a kind looking woman? Healing didn't sound so bad, even if she had to be trained alongside a bunch of other girls. In fact, that didn't seem bad either – they had appeared to be enjoying themselves after all.

Later that night, Eska visited her father in his study where he was going over some scrolls on his desk.

"It's late, Eska. You should be preparing for bed," he muttered with nothing more than a swift glance in her direction.

"I want to ask you something," she stated feebly from the doorway, feeling less and less certain about coming to him with her request.

Unalaq set down his papers and lifted his head to give his six year old daughter his full attention. "Alright, tell me what is," he said with a light smile and motioned for her to come forward.

"I think I want to learn healing from Nakoma with those other girls," Eska answered plainly as she approached the desk, regaining fortitude as she recalled the joy and excitement in their eyes, wanting to taste it for herself.

Her father let out a sigh and ran a hand down his face before responding, "We've already had this discussion. You are not going to become a healer. Besides, you're not like other girls, and you're not meant to fraternize with them. You are a princess and my daughter, which places you in a role of distinction."

Eska felt her confidence fall at his words, but she still wasn't quite ready to let go of her small hope. "But it could be useful-" she began to point out, hoping to appeal to her father's proclivity for logic.

"Well it did nothing to help your _mother_!" Unalaq suddenly snapped, causing Eska to jump slightly. "Nakoma's healing couldn't save her, which makes it completely worthless to me!" Then he visibly calmed himself and spoke in his usual sedate tone, "Rest assured you will not be useless. Many are unaware that greater minds often have plans for their talents, and they will be called upon when the time is right." He released her from his cold gaze and returned to his scrolls. "I don't want to hear another word about healing. Goodnight," he uttered with a cold ring of finality.

Eska dropped her head and turned to walk out the door, feeling ashamed for asking and knowing she would never mention it again. Her father had never lost his temper with her like that before, and yet she should have remembered that any subject relating to her mother was supposed to be off limits, but then again, so was argument of any kind. An order was an order, something to be obeyed and observed, never negotiated.


	2. Chapter 2

**An Ice Cold Heart**

**Part II**

* * *

Some years later, not long after Eska and Desna's twelfth birthday, they went with their father on one of the Water Tribe Chief's customary excursions to the South Pole. It had been a long time since Eska had last seen her Avatar cousin, and as she disembarked the royal ship with her family, she felt anxious excitement twist around in her stomach.

She had always admired Korra, for not only was she such a powerful bender, but just the fact that she was a little older and so confident and her relative, made Eska look up to her and want Korra to think well of her in return. However, the fact remained that they were still not exactly friends, and Eska figured it was probably because she never knew what to say to her. Actually, she hardly ever knew what to say to anyone, but she wanted that to change now. She would do her best to talk and relate to Korra; after all, she was almost a teenager too, and maybe Korra would find her more interesting now.

Their first few days in the South went much as they usually did, however, and Eska barely seemed to be able to spend even two minutes at a time with her older cousin. Korra always seemed to be busy with her bending masters, or helping her parents with chores, or taking care of her polar bear dog. But Eska decided she would try to arrange at least one day that they could spend together, and so one morning she walked down to Korra's house with the plan to ask her what day she would be free. The thought of being so forward made her uncomfortably nervous, but she saw no other option if she was going to achieve her goal.

When Eska reached the house, she could hear the raised voices of Korra and her mother having a heated argument, and she decided to wait until they were done before intruding.

"Just a few hours, that's all I'm asking," she heard Senna say in a rather strained sounding voice.

"That's like asking me to go through _just_ a few hours of torture!" Korra shot back angrily. "Dad doesn't like them any more than I do, and you don't make _him_ spend more time with them than he has to!"

"Oh, Korra, don't be so dramatic! She's just a little girl who needs a friend. It's not going to kill you to bond with her a little."

"Bond? With a statue? Mom, she's so creepy, and I can guarantee you she has no interest in having me as a friend. The way she looks at me you would think I'm some kind of mutant or something."

Eska didn't doubt for a second that they were discussing her, and she felt something strangely akin to one of Desna's ice blows hitting her in the stomach when they dueled. Her neck and face burned with this new self-realization. Is this what the girls in the North Pole thought of her too, and essentially the reason they avoided her like a plague? Her father had always made her believe that she didn't belong around other children because she was different, above them in her rank and class. But what if that wasn't true? What if she didn't belong because they didn't like her? Because she was awkward and shy and… creepy?

She didn't hear the end of the conversation, but merely stood frozen in the snow as she tried to overcome her embarrassment and shock. About a minute later the door flung open and Korra emerged with a demoralized expression on her face - apparently she had lost the argument.

"Oh, hey… Eska," she greeted hesitantly, looking slightly startled to run into her. "I was just on my way up to see if you wanted to… you know, hang out or something?"

"No, thank you. I'm afraid I'm busy today," she replied stiffly, finding it easy to lie since it was the same excuse Korra had used on her several times already.

"Oh!" Korra sighed in a deceptively relieved fashion. "Well that's too bad. I should go anyway. I'm supposed to have a healing lesson with Katara."

Eska worded the first response that formed in her mind to that statement. "Healing is for the weak."

She regretted saying it though as Korra's face immediately twisted in stupefaction, her eyebrow shooting up and her mouth gaping open as though Eska had just sprouted an extra arm. "Okay… well, bye," Korra said quickly, shaking her head and turning to run down the road to begin her lesson.

Eska turned as well and began heading in the opposite direction. Her steps quickened as she got closer to the Southern Tribe Palace, where they always stayed when they came down to visit. She found Desna almost at once, trusting her uncanny senses that had always been so closely linked to his. He turned to face her as she approached and glanced at her eyes, seeing what she didn't need words to express.

"Shall we?" he asked after a moment, angling his shoulder towards the door that led to a spacious courtyard where they had already spent many bending practice sessions.

"We shall," she answered with a nod and followed him outside.

Desna knew without asking what she wanted to do, and without a word they simultaneously started to practice their dual fighting moves, rather than facing off against each other. They were like two cogs of the same machine, swerving, dodging, and bending with each other in perfect synchronization and fluidity. It soothed her and gave her the only peace she had ever been able to find in the whole world. With her twin, Eska belonged, even if she did nowhere else.


	3. Chapter 3

**An Ice Cold Heart**

**Part III**

* * *

He wasn't coming.

There was no more denying it, no excuses left to make for him. The sun had set long ago, and it was as clear as the ice that surrounded the frozen landscape that Bolin had abandoned her on their wedding day.

The dawning horror that he had done this to her was so much more painful than all the other gawking stares and whispered mutterings anyone ever made behind her back combined, more than every other rejection or let down she had ever encountered.

Eska vaguely remembered walking the streets alone in search of him, her hands shaking as she sent passersby running with her burning glare. She didn't know who said it, but somehow she caught word of the news that Korra and her friends had taken over the prison ship headed to the North, and now there were whispers of war. She wouldn't have cared if war had broken out right there in the city, she just wanted Bolin back with answers, and only then would she worry about anything else.

She landed on the waves and took off across the ocean, her wrath fueling her bending in an explosive force of power. She saw Varrick's boat and made a beeline for it, recalling how he was the one leading the rebels and that Bolin liked to hang around him. But even at her top speed she couldn't catch up with them, and she had to watch as her betrothed disappeared into the darkening night.

Eska barely had enough energy to bend herself back to the South Pole shore, and she scrambled up to the first dock she could reach before sitting down to stare hollowly towards the northern horizon, not even noticing that the water in her clothes was beginning to freeze or that her whole body was trembling.

"Is he really worth dying over?" Desna's voice permeated the stillness.

He didn't seem to be troubled by her lack of response as he bent all the water off of her and draped his cloak around her shoulders, then settled himself down to sit beside her.

They remained like that for some time, neither speaking nor looking at each other. Eska didn't want her brother to see her face while she was in this state – humiliated, broken, and utterly disgraced. But his steady, familiar presence may have slowly helped to ease the hollowness resonating inside her so that she could begin to separate the emotions that were pressing in and choking her.

Bolin was supposed to be hers. She had never wanted anything more than she wanted him. From the moment they had met, he had been warm, open, unassuming and accepting of her – a first in her life. During the times she had spent with him, he somehow managed to bring her softer side out into the open, something she had previously been unaware that she owned. And also for the first time in her life, she had abandoned logic and careful reasoning in favor of acting on nothing but the whim of her usually shuttered emotions. All because of him.

And now Bolin had betrayed her. She had already known that he was beginning to fade away from her, so what else could she have done except force him to stay? She had learned from an early age that she lacked the ability to charm and win people over, so she simply had to take what she wanted or accept constant dejection. But she had failed, and he was gone.

Desna broke the silence once again. "Don't bother yourself with that earthbender, Eska. You deserve better. Someone who will actually want to marry you."

"I will bother myself with him if I wish, and I don't want anyone else – I want my Bolin. Besides, if I wait until I find someone who wants to marry me, I'll never stop waiting. And then when you wed, I will be alone, sinking further into despondency as I wait for someone who doesn't exist."

Desna finally turned to look at her profile, and she knew he could see the tears making tracks on her cheeks even in the low light of the moon. "Were you prepared to abandon me so readily this night after your wedding was supposed to have taken place?"

Eska's whirling thoughts came to a grinding halt as his words struck her. She shifted her head in his direction just slightly enough to peer at his outline from the corner of her eye, then she sighed and let her shoulders fall in observance to the point he was making.

"See?" he said quietly. "I could not leave you any sooner than you could leave me. It doesn't matter what happens in our lives or who enters them. You will never have to be alone."

He was succeeding in comforting her, but it also brought a wave of guilt. Everything was so confusing. She wasn't accustomed to this. Weeks ago when they had left the North Pole for yet another visit to the South, Eska had been prepared for the usual boring, uneventful trip, but not at all for what had taken place instead. She had not been prepared for the complete and total explosion of her inner world and mental constructs, so that she was left holding the broken pieces in her hands and not knowing how to put them back together.


	4. Chapter 4

**An Ice Cold Heart **

**Part IV**

* * *

Desna and Eska didn't have to verbalize their thoughts to know that they shared a mutual concern for a certain attitude that was beginning to dominate their father's personality. It was plainly communicated in the looks they shared each time he said something that further pointed to his escalating obsession with capturing Korra and opening portals. They didn't doubt that what he was trying to accomplish was important, but it was the change in his countenance that troubled them. Their father had always been nothing if not consistent, and yet lately he had been making statements that completely contradicted things he had said not even that long ago.

However, it was not their place to question him, and Eska was finding Unalaq's preoccupations of less and less importance to her. She was also still dealing with the unsettling feeling that had been left inside her after she and Desna had witnessed their cousin being attacked by a dark spirit, from which Korra had most certainly perished. All of that aside, Eska was unsurprised that she wasn't having too much trouble holding her own through the chaos that had been taking place the last couple of weeks. She always somehow managed to pull through relatively unscathed through even the darkest of times, and had been able to for as long as she could remember.

But then something changed.

Lightning exploded from the Northern Portal as the twins attempted to break it open with their father. It shot out all around them and struck Desna, throwing him backwards several yards until he landed hard on the ground with a pained groan.

"Desna!" Eska cried, transferring her full attention to her wounded sibling.

"Leave him. Keep bending!" Unalaq commanded as he began piercing the portal with yet another stream of water.

Without a moment's hesitation, Eska disobeyed her father for the first time in her memory and went at once to Desna's side. She turned him up to examine him and saw right away that something was horribly wrong. She called out to her father, trying to make him see that they needed to leave, that Desna needed healing, but he would not leave the portal, arguing that it was more important.

Eska looked back at Densa's face, contorted with agony, and she knew what she must do even if she couldn't comprehend her father's reasoning. As Desna faded in her arms, so did everything that was solid in her life, bringing to the forefront the frail reality that was anything else. The only thing growing in strength now was her determination to keep him alive, and she clung to it with every ounce of her will as they stumbled over the rocky terrain and then finally passed back through the Southern Portal.

After making it to the other side, Eska felt Desna begin to collapse even with the aid of her support, his weakness overcoming him. She had to let him settle on the ground for a moment, needing to catch her breath, and was panicked to see him looking ten times worse, like whatever spiritual energy that had hit him was draining his life force from the inside out.

Desperation was ripping at her now. _'You will never have to be alone.'_ The promise he had once made sounded in her head with indignation, as though she was subconsciously accusing him of threatening to break his word. Desna's eyes cracked open for a second and found her gaze, as if to reply, '_sorry'_. But she knew she was the one who should apologize, for not being able to heal him.

She formed a sled of ice underneath his body and began maneuvering him as quickly as possible with her bending in the direction of help. She felt so pathetic for at one time worrying that Desna might find someone before she did and leave her all alone, when now it was such a viable possibility that death could be the means in which they would be separated instead of marriage.

Desna was the one who kept her going, the only one who truly cared for her. Her anchor, her other half. Bolin be damned. Unalaq be damned. As long as she had her twin, she could endure anything. Without him, she would surely collapse in on herself and diminish into inconsequence.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! I haven't decided yet if I will add more or not. It'll probably depend on how things turn out in the following episodes. And thanks to my bestie **Aggressively Hospitable** for beta reading.

*Post Season 2 Finale EDIT - This story is now an AU since ***SPOILER ALERT* **it was revealed in the Book 2 finale that Desna and Eska's mother is in fact still alive.


End file.
